Whatnot At Work

Anti Fatigue For On Your Feet Jobs

Ergos makes an anti fatigue matting that straps to the bottom of workers' shoes or boots with velcro. This reduces stress and fatigue for workers standing or working on their feet all day. From their site:

Developed to combat the negative effects of working, walking and standing on hard surfaces, ErgoMates™ provide companies and their employees with a lightweight, washable, reusable and cost-effective complement to their existing ergonomic strategy.

Sleep Deprived Medical Interns As Dangerous As Drunks

In 2003, new rules set limits to the amount of consecutive hours an intern can work after a study found interns were routinely working 70 hours in a row. This was dangerous for both the patients and the interns. The limits were put in place because sleep deprived interns make many more medical mistakes.

These findings build on previous research and the growing awareness that sleep-deprived first-year doctors in training (interns) working traditional 24-hour shifts make many more serious medical errors and crash their cars more often than those whose work is limited to 16 consecutive hours.

A recent study found that 83.6% of interns are breaking the new rules and are still working dangerously long hours. The new study also finds that the sleep deprived interns are 61% more likely to accidentally stick themselves from needles, potentially exposing themselves to HIV, hepatitis and other diseases. According to the chief of sleep medicine at Harvard and Brigham and Women's,

"There are serious consequences to these work hours. They are just as impaired as if they had three shots of whiskey. Working these marathon shifts is a 19th century tradition that has no place in 21st century medicine."

Makeup Contains Hazardous Chemicals

If your dress code policy requires women to wear makeup, you might want to read this. (And be prepared for lawsuits.)

A new study in the U.K. has found that applying make-up regularly could be hazardous to health. The study says that on average a woman applies 175 chemicals on a daily basis categorized as cosmetics and toiletries.

Of those chemicals, most are mixes of various chemicals that are associated to health problems. In fact, some of those chemicals are linked to cancer, hormonal conditions, and skin-problems.

Overwork Causes High Blood Pressure

Too much work may be hazardous to your health. Karoshi is the japanese word for "death from overwork." A new study shows a link between working overtime and high blood pressure. From a group of 24,305 California workers, those who worked 51 hours or more each week had 29% higher chance of high blood pressure than those that worked 39 hours or less. Those working 40 hours had a 14% higher chance than the 39 or less group.

The study also found the results are more common for clerical and unskilled work than for professional workers.

This suggests that occupations requiring more challenging and mentally active work may have a protective effect against hypertension.

Turn Off The TV

The National Memory Test in Australia found those that watched the least television had the best memories.

"Turn off the box, or at least don't view too much of it," the survey results said, adding those who watched less than one hour a day performed better at all memory tasks."

Their findings for the best memories based on 29,500 participants:

• Less than 1 hour of television a day.
• Less than 2 alcoholic beverages a day.
• Reading fiction.
• Going to trivia nights - working the memory makes it stronger.
• Doing crosswords.
• Eating fish.

Here are the full results: national memory test results and here are interesting facts about memory. In the news here.

Coffee May Trigger Heart Attack

A new study finds that light and moderate coffee drinking may trigger heart attacks. Heavy coffee drinkers are not susceptible because they are habituated to the effects of caffeine.

One cup or less of coffee per day may set off heart attacks in people with a sedentary lifestyle or with three or more risk factors for heart disease.

She stressed the study focused only on the short-term effects of coffee; the researchers only looked at the first hour after coffee was consumed. "The acute effect of coffee as a trigger for heart attack is modified by habitual consumption. People who drink it regularly are still at risk. Only heavy drinkers are not at risk," she said.

We wrote previously about the health ramifications of too much caffeine here.

Overtime Worse For Women

A new study finds that women tend to snack more and exercise less when pulling overtime. They also tend to smoke more and drink more caffeine. This causes weight gain and declining health. Men don't seem to get the munchies when they work overtime. Both men and women tend to drink less alcohol when they are working a lot of overtime.

To combat the ill effects of overtime, companies are encouraging exercising and healthy snacks: fruit, low-fat yogurt, low-fat crackers. A company mentioned in the article compensates employees $75 per month for exercising one and a half hours each week.

Clean Mouse

Anti-bacterial mouse for the office to help prevent the spread of germs.

The Elecom M-ABUR series mouse comes with a special resin coating that prevents bacteria from growing on it.

Smaller Bowls, Smaller Spoons

Researchers at Cornell University found that using smaller bowls and smaller utensils result in people eating less. A study involving 85 nutrition experts found that participants with large bowls took 31% more ice cream than those with smaller bowls. Those with larger spoons served themselves 14.5% more than those with smaller spoons. All but three participants cleaned their plates (ate all they took), instead of stopping when they were full. If nutrition experts overeat when they are given big bowls and spoons, the rest of us will too.

Stock your employee cafeteria with smaller bowls and smaller utensils to help your employees eat the right portion size.

Pesticide in Soda

What are your employees drinking?

India is threatening to ban both Pepsi and Coca Cola from their country because tests show both Pepsi's and Coke's soda contain high levels of pesticides and that the levels are increasing dramatically. According to the Center for Science and Environment, Pepsi sodas contain 30 times more pesticide now than they did in 2003 and Coke contains 25 times more than in 2003.

The court order followed the release of a report by the Centre for Science and Environment, a non-government body, which contended that 11 brands sold by the two soft drinks makers contained high levels of pesticide residues. The organisation said that samples from 12 states showed that Pepsi products contained 30 times more pesticides than in 2003, when a similar study was conducted. Coke samples had 25 times the amount of pesticides as three years ago.

The results from the 2003 test caused a ban of soda in schools across the country. They were replaced with fruit juices.

Schools banned colas, and fruit juice sales boomed as yoga gurus reminded people of the value of healthy drinking.

Replacing your soda machines with juice machines in the workplace might be a simple and inexpensive way to boost the health and productivity of your workforce.

California has a health initiative to encourage healthy workplace options. Their site has lots of resources and brochures for companies to encourage healthy habits at no cost: vending machine options(pdf), healthy meeting options(pdf), how to energize your workday(pdf), as well as health statistics(pdf) in the California workplace.